Wilhelm Weizsäcker

Wilhelm Weizsäcker (born November 2, 1886 in Prague , † July 19, 1961 in Heidelberg ) was a Sudeten German lawyer and legal historian. He comes from the Palatinate - Württemberg family Weizsäcker .

He started his career in the Austro-Hungarian judiciary and was judge and professor at the German University in Prague during the First Republic of Czechoslovakia . After Czechoslovakia was broken up in 1938 , Weizsäcker exposed himself as a National Socialist in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , among other things as managing director of the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation . After 1945 he had a decisive influence on the Sudeten German image of history. His person and his work are controversial due to his political commitment.

life and career

Education

Weizsäcker's father was a merchant who immigrated from Ellwangen , his mother the daughter of a railway director from Gablonz . Wilhelm therefore grew up in bourgeois and well-off circumstances. In 1904 he began to study law and political science at the German Karl Ferdinand University in Prague , which he completed in 1909 with a doctorate. He placed a special focus on legal history , which was represented in Prague by Adolf Zycha .

Judge and legal historian

In 1913 Weizsäcker passed the examination for the judge's office at the Prague Higher Regional Court . He then took up a position at the Bilin District Court . He was released from military service. After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy , he continued his judicial career in Czechoslovakia .

In 1922 he completed his habilitation for legal history at Zycha . So that he could fulfill his teaching duties as a private lecturer , Weizsäcker was transferred to the Prague District Commercial Court. In 1926 he was appointed associate professor at the German University. In 1930 he took over the full professorship for legal history. In 1932 he was elected Dean of the Law Faculty for the first time . In addition, he was involved in scientific and local history organizations.

Weizsäcker first dealt with the Saxon and Bohemian mining law in his scientific work . Later he mainly worked on the law of the Bohemian and Moravian cities and the interaction of German and Slavic legal thought. Since the mid-1930s at the latest, his writings have shown a rapprochement with “ folk history ”, as he increasingly dealt with the contribution of Germans to the development of their settlement area.

Commitment to National Socialism

In May 1935 Weizsäcker joined the Sudeten German party . In June 1938 he accepted an offer to become head of the legal department of the Sudeten German Research Association headed by Kurt Oberdorffer . In the course of the Sudeten crisis , he followed the call of the Sudeten German Party to refuse to accept his teaching duties. On the other hand, he rejected the demand by the Prague Ministry of Education to sign a declaration by the German rectors and deans against the Greater German demands of the Sudeten German party. Instead, he went to Vienna in September 1938 with other lecturers and professors from the German University, including Karl Maria Swoboda and Heinz Zatschek , and from there supported the demand for the German University to be relocated to the Sudeten German settlement area. The Prague professors also made connections to the University of Munich through the middleman Mariano San Nicolò , a friend of Weizsäcker, and above all to the University Commission of the NSDAP and the leadership of the Reich lecturers .

After the staff of the Fuehrer's deputy had rejected any relocation of the university in November 1938 , Weizsäcker returned to Prague and subsequently played a key role in the co-ordination of the university, which began in December 1938, and its transformation into a "National Socialist university". In 1939 he joined the SA with the rank of Obersturmbannführer and also the NSDAP (membership number 7,098,455). Weizsäcker also actively represented the role that the German university was intended to play under National Socialism, namely to act as the “mediator of German science and German culture for Southeast Europe”.

In August 1940 Weizsäcker received a call from the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education to take over the chair for German law at the University of Vienna as Heinrich Mittei's successor . No later than April 1942, he was, however, by Hans Joachim Beyer enlisted the special representative Reinhard Heydrich in Prague Slavonic should reshape research in Prague. The aim was to bring the scientific institutions into line and to propagate National Socialism . For this purpose, the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation named after Heydrich was finally established in July 1942 . Weizsäcker returned to Prague in the spring of 1943 to organize and manage the newly established Institute for German Law in the East as part of the foundation. He was also the administrative director of the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation.

Weizsäcker's political reliability was beyond question for the Nazi regime. The security service of the Reichsführer SS counted him among the "activist, National Socialist solidly founded and politically clearly oriented and open-minded professors" of the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation. In his own work on city law, Weizsäcker implemented Beyer's revolving theses, for example in the assertion that it was German city law that had evoked an urban culture in the Czech people. On the other hand, he rejected the democratic party state:

“The partisan fragmentation of the party state, the absurdity of the democratic majority principle especially in the nationality state, the lies of the system of representation and the individualistically bridled equality before the law, all these are pieces of equipment from the junk room of a past political doctrine, whose effect is particularly evident in the history of Bohemia and Moravia can study excellently. "

- Wilhelm Weizsäcker : Bohemia and Moravia as a German empire, people and legal area. (1943), p. 411.

Weizsäcker also campaigned publicly for National Socialism. The Gaupropaganda Office in Reichenberg thanked Weizsäcker on April 28, 1944 for a public speech with the words: "Through your commitment, you have once again strengthened the belief in victory in many hundred people and deepened their knowledge of the National Socialist idea."

Weizsäcker stayed in Prague until the end. On May 8, 1945 , he fled the advancing Red Army from a side exit of the university and moved west with the withdrawing Wehrmacht .

After the Second World War

Weizsäcker became an American prisoner of war and was interned in Pilsen . On June 9, 1945 he managed to escape and made his way to Munich . Until the end of 1949 he worked here as a legal and administrative advisor to the main committee for refugees and deportees in Bavaria and for the Sudeten German Economic Aid. He also represented the interests of the Sudeten German expellees externally. On April 13, 1948, he was denazified as a “fellow traveler” by the Munich Chamber X against a fine of M 300. As an employee of the German legal dictionary he found a job as an honorary professor in Heidelberg on October 4, 1950 .

Weizsäcker was involved in many institutions and associations such as the Adalbert Stifter Association , the East German Cultural Council , the Historical Commission of the Sudetenland , the Palatinate Society for the Promotion of Science , the Collegium Carolinum and the Herder Research Council . Together with Bruno Schier , Eugen Lemberg , Hermann Aubin , Josef Hanika and Kurt Oberdorffer , he thus formed a scientific network. In 1955 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his commitment to looking after the Sudeten German expellees . On his 70th birthday, friends and colleagues dedicated the second issue of the Zeitschrift für Ostforschung to him. According to § 78a of the law regulating the legal relationships of persons falling under Article 131 of the Basic Law , he was given the legal status of a full professor emeritus on July 29, 1958 in Heidelberg .

Critical appraisal

The life and work of Wilhelm Weizsäcker are judged differently. For Joachim Bahlcke it fits

“[T] he passionate, challenging rhetoric and open sympathy for the National Socialist regime [...], as it [...] occasionally echoed in publications of the early 1940s, [...] does not quite fit into the image of the subtle little man who does not I felt doubts on the national side and took the Munich Agreement as satisfaction. [...] Like many others, Weizsäcker should completely misunderstand the National Socialist expansion policy as a mere revision policy. [...] Weizsäcker's reserved attitude towards the democratic party state is explained less by a fundamentally ideological rejection of parliamentary forms and more by the constitutional and political position of the Sudeten Germans after 1918, which was perceived specifically as discrimination and exclusion, in short: the widespread fear of the threat to the national existence and the Worry about social decline. "

- Joachim Bahlcke : Science and the struggle between nationalities. (2004), p. 347.

“On the whole, Weizsäcker succeeded in comparison to other university professors during the Protectorate period [...] for the most part in his own research on the history of Bohemia, despite all attempts to use scientific research to propagate the Third Reich and to include it in the National Socialist subjugation and To continue the extermination policy continuously and successfully; His specialist publications and lectures in the years from the Munich Agreement to the end of the war show that he concentrated his scientific powers primarily on source studies and detailed research that was detached from current ideological interests in the narrower sense. "

- Joachim Bahlcke : Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961) lawyer. (2001), p. 410f.

Karel Hruza, on the other hand, emphasizes that Weizsäcker was honored and praised several times for his commitment by National Socialist institutions and organizations. Weizsäcker had voluntarily joined Hans Joachim Beyer and his interest groups without any pressure being exerted and was significantly committed to bringing the German University into line in the National Socialist sense. Hruza assesses Weizsäcker:

“He [...] was a nationalist with backward-looking and culturally pessimistic views, who turned into a staunch National Socialist and thought of waging a 'national struggle' with scientific 'weapons'. [...] As a National Socialist, he welcomed the measures of the Nazi regime, actively supported it and at the same time enjoyed privileges that other humanities scholars were denied. "

- Karel Hruza : "Scientific tools for current political questions." (2005), p. 492.

Bahlcke and Hruza agree, however, that Weizsäcker was one of the leading scientists in the “Sudeten German nationality struggle”, who made a decisive contribution to the formation of a Sudeten German image of history and its integration into general German history, as Hruza did with the example of Weizsäcker's story of the Germans in Bohemia and Moravia from 1950 shows how to break away from the national-historical terminology of National Socialism after 1945.

In the Soviet occupation zone , Das Sudetendeutschtum , which he published in 1939 with Gustav Pirchan and Heinz Zatschek , was placed on the list of literature to be sorted out .

Fonts

• The strangers in the Bohemian town charter of the pre-Hussite period. Verl. Of the reading and speaking hall of the German students, Prague 1924.
• History of mining in the Sudetenland. German Association for the Dissemination of Public Benefit Knowledge, Prague 1928.
• With Erich Gierach: Saxon mining law in Bohemia. The Joachimsthal mining law of the 16th century. Stiepel, Reichenberg 1929.
• With Emil Werunsky: The historical law of the German university in Prague. A final word from your academy. Senate. , Prague 1930.
• (Ed.): The Graupner Bergbuch from 1530. Along with a fragment of the Graupner Bergbuch from 1512. Verl. D. Rst for Sudeten German local research, Reichenberg 1932.
• With Karl Zimmer: System of the Czechoslovakian mining law taking into account the Austrian. Mercy, Prague 1933.
• Legal history of the city and district of Komotau up to 1605 . District teachers' association, Chomutov 1935.
• The spread of the German city law to the east. Vowinckel, Heidelberg, Berlin 1936.
• People, clan and family in the older German law. Calve in Komm, Prague 1936.
• Magdeburg in the politics of the German emperors. Contributions to the geopolitics and history of the East Westphalian area; on the occasion of the 1000 year return of Otto the Great's accession to the throne. In: Magdeburg in the politics of the German emperors, contributions to geopolitics and history of the East Westphalian area; on the occasion of the 1000 year return of Otto the Great's accession to the throne. - Heidelberg and others: Vowinckel. 1936.
• Edited with Gustav Pirchan and Heinz Zatschek: Das Sudetendeutschtum. Its essence and becoming in the course of the centuries; Festschrift for the 75th anniversary d. Association f. History of the Germans in Bohemia. Rohrer, Brno 1937.
• The right. In: The Sudeten Germanism. 1938, pp. 109-149.
• On the history of the Meissen legal code in Bohemia and Moravia. In: Ulrich Stutz commemorative publication for his seventieth birthday. 1938, pp. 584-614.
• The German law of the East as reflected in the legal records. In: German Archive for State and Folk Research. 1939, pp. 50-77.
• The right. In: The Sudeten Germanism. 1939, pp. 117-158.
• From the history of Jewish law in Bohemia-Moravia. In: Journal for Eastern European Law. 1940, pp. 457-467.
• The Bohemian as Obermann in the German election. In: Festschrift Ernst Heymann. 1940, pp. 191-208.
• The transfer of property in Komotan according to the two oldest city books. In: Science in the people's struggle. 1941, pp. 329-346.
• The spread of the Meissner law book in the east. In: German Archive for State and Folk Research. 1941, pp. 26-38.
• On the history of the Magdeburg judges' sayings in the Bohemian region. In: Treatises on legal and economic history. 1941, pp. 265-284.
• The status of legal historical research in East Germany. In: Deutsche Ostforschung. 1942, pp. 391-419.
• From German city law in the Sudetenland. In: Journal for German Spiritual Science. 1942, pp. 272-299.
• The German farmers in the Protectorate and in the Sudetenland. In: Nobility and peasants in the German state of the Middle Ages. 1943, pp. 252-266.
• The political achievement of Charles University [Prague]. In: Bohemia and Moravia. 1943, pp. 19-22.
• With Fritz Markmann: Magdeburg judges' rulings and legal notices for the Oberhof Leitmeritz. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1943.
• Fateful battlefields. In: The Bohemia and Moravia Book. People's struggle and realm. People and Empire, Prague, Amsterdam. Berlin, Vienna 1943, pp. 199–205.
• With Otto Peterka : Contributions to the legal history of Leitmeritz. Volk und Reich Verl, Prague 1944.
• The German University in Prague. Goose, Graefelfing b. Munich 1948.
• History of the Germans in Bohemia and Moravia. Flemming, Hamburg 1950.
• German law as a building factor in the East. In: The German East and the West. 1953, pp. 95-114.
• About a Bohemian collection of judges' rulings in the Lviv State Library. In: Prager Festgabe for Theodor Mayer. 1953, pp. 138-147.
• People and state in the German legal proverb. In: From constitutional and national history. 1954, pp. 305-329.
• "Huden" and "Hütten". A chapter in the history of legal language. In: Syntagma Friburgense. 1956, pp. 293-299.
• Palatine wisdoms. Verl. D. Palatinate. Society to Förderg d. Wiss, Speyer 1957.
• Emperor and women worshiping. In: Festschrift for Karl Gottfried Hugelmann on his 80th birthday on September 26, 1959. 1959, pp. 815–831.
• With Otto Gönnenwein: German legal dictionary. Dictionary of the older German legal language. Böhlau, Weimar 1960.
• Source book on the history of the Sudetenland. Lerche, Munich 1960.
• From prehistoric times to the renewed state regulations (1627/1628). Lerche, Munich 1960.
• With the Constance working group for medieval history : About the meaning of feudalism in the Sudetenland. Sigmaringen, Thorbecke 1960.
• The birth of the rural community in Bohemia. In: The beginnings of the rural community and its essence. 1964, pp. 379-386.

literature

• Joachim Bahlcke: Wilhelm Weizsäcker 1886–1961, lawyer. Legal history and national community. In: Monika Glettler, Alena Míšková (eds.): Prager Professoren 1938–1948. Between science and politics. Essen 2001, pp. 391-411.
• Joachim Bahlcke: Science and the fight between nationalities. On the academic and university policy activities of the Prague legal historian Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961) from the Munich Agreement to the end of the Second World War . In: Österreichische Osthefte. Journal for East, Central and Southeast European Studies. Vol. 46, 2004, pp. 345-359.
• Joachim Bahlcke: Věda v sudetoněmeckém národnostním boji. K vysokoškolské a politické činnosti pražského právního historika Wilhelma Weizsäckera v době od mnichovské dohody 1938 do konce druhé světové války. In: Věda v českých zemích za druhé světové války. Prague 1998 (Czech).
• Karel Hruza: Wilhelm Wostry and Wilhelm Weizsäcker: vzorní mužové, řádní učenci a věrní vlasti synové? (Wilhelm Wostry and Wilhelm Weizsäcker: Exemplary people, thorough scholars and loyal sons of the homeland?) In: Pavel Soukup, František Šmahel (ed.): Německá medievistika v českých zemích do roku 1945. (German Medieval Studies in Bohemia and in Czechoslovakia 1945) Práce z dějin vědy 18, Prague 2004, pp. 305–352 (Czech).
• Karel Hruza: “Scientific tools for current political questions.” Critical comments on the work and work of the historians Wilhelm Weizsäcker and Wilhelm Wostry. In: Journal for East Central Europe Research. Volume 54, 2005, pp. 475-526.
• Thomas Krzenck: Wilhelm Weizsäcker - a scholar between guilt and entanglement. In: Stefan Albrecht (Ed.): The “Sudeten German Historiography” 1918–1960. On the prehistory and establishment of the Historical Commission of the Sudetenland. Lectures at the conference of the Historical Commission for the Bohemian Lands (formerly: the Sudetenland) in Brno from October 1st to 2nd, 2004 on the occasion of their 50th anniversary (= publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 114). Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, pp. 97–112 ( digitized version , conference report ).
• Klaus-Peter Schroeder : “A university for and by lawyers”. The Heidelberg Faculty of Law in the 19th and 20th centuries. Tübingen 2010.
• Andreas Wiedemann: The Reinhard Heydrich Foundation in Prague (1942–1945). Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, Dresden 2000, ISBN 3-931648-31-1 (PDF; 943 kB) .

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Weizsäcker in the catalog of the German National Library
• Professors in the popular struggle. In: Bohemistik.de
• Wilhelm Weizäcker (sic!) In the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Weizsäcker, Wilhelm . In: Ostdeutsche Biographie (Kulturportal West-Ost) - with picture

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stefan Albrecht (Ed.): The "Sudeten German Historiography" 1918–1960. Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, p. 105.
2. ^ Joachim Bahlcke: Science and the struggle between nationalities. On the academic and university policy activities of the Prague legal historian Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961) from the Munich Agreement to the end of the Second World War. In: Österreichische Osthefte. 46, No. 3 2004, p. 352.
3. ^ Andreas Wiedemann: The Reinhard Heydrich Foundation in Prague (1942–1945). Dresden 2000, ISBN 3-931648-31-1 , p. 165; Joachim Bahlcke: Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961) lawyer. Legal history and national community. In: Monika Glettler and Alena Míšková (eds.). Prague professors 1938–1948. Between science and politics. Klartext, Essen 2001, ISBN 3-88474-955-2 , p. 402.
4. ^ Andreas Wiedemann: The Reinhard Heydrich Foundation in Prague (1942–1945). Dresden 2000, ISBN 3-931648-31-1 , p. 170.
5. ^ Wilhelm Weizsäcker: Bohemia and Moravia as a German empire, people and legal area. In: Friedrich Heiß (Ed.): The Bohemian and Moravian Book. People's struggle and realm. Prague 1943, p. 411.
6. ^ Article by Joachim Bahlcke: Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961) lawyer. Legal history and national community. In: Monika Glettler and Alena Míšková (eds.). Prague professors 1938–1948. Between science and politics. Klartext, Essen 2001, ISBN 3-88474-955-2 , p. 402.
7. ^ Joachim Bahlcke: Science and the struggle between nationalities. On the academic and university policy activities of the Prague legal historian Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961) from the Munich Agreement to the end of the Second World War. In: Österreichische Osthefte. 46, No. 3 2004, p. 347.
8. ^ Joachim Bahlcke: Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961) lawyer. Legal history and national community. In: Monika Glettler and Alena Míšková (eds.). Prague professors 1938–1948. Between science and politics. Klartext, Essen 2001, p. 410f .; Joachim Bahlcke: "With the weapons of science". The Sudeten German lawyer and legal historian Wilhelm Weizsäcker (1886–1961). Biographical and bibliographical notes. In: Federal Institute for East German Culture and History (ed.). Reports and Research. Oldenbourg, Munich 1998 (6), p. 185.
9. ↑ Karel Hruza: "Scientific tools for current political questions." Critical comments on the work and work of the historians Wilhelm Weizsäcker and Wilhelm Wostry. In: Journal for East Central Europe Research 54 (2005), p. 492.
10. ^ Joachim Bahlcke: Wilhelm Weizsäcker. In: Ingo Haar , Michael Fahlbusch (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Völkischen Wissenschaften. People - institutions - research programs - foundations. Munich 2008, p. 737; Karel Hruza: “Scientific tools for current political issues.” Critical comments on the work and work of the historians Wilhelm Weizsäcker and Wilhelm Wostry. In: Journal for East Central Europe Research 54 (2005), p. 490f.
11. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-s.html